Suspect charged after elderly men found in home

Updated 6:20 pm, Saturday, July 20, 2013

Walter Renard Jones, 31, is charged with injury to the elderly. He was arrested at a north Houston home where men said they were kept against their will.

Walter Renard Jones, 31, is charged with injury to the elderly. He was arrested at a north Houston home where men said they were kept against their will.

Photo: Houston Police Department

Suspect charged after elderly men found in home

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

Charges have been filed against a 31-year-old sex offender following the discovery of three malnourished elderly men in a north Houston home Friday morning.

Walter Renard Jones, 31, is charged with two counts of injury to the elderly-serious bodily injury in the 263rd State District Court.

Houston police said officers responded to a call about 8:25 a.m. Friday regarding people being held against their will inside the house in the 8600 block of Whitecastle.

Officers got permission to enter the house and found three men living without any care, according to a news release Saturday. Earlier HPD reports had indicated at least four men in the house.

Houston Fire Department personnel transported the men to a hospital, where they were in stable condition Saturday, authorities said.

The three men claim that Jones misled them into living at the home and kept them there for monetary gain, police said.

Investigators at the scene describe the conditions as "deplorable." The men told police they slept on a linoleum floor in the garage, were fed scraps and had no access to a bathroom.

Investigators said the men told them their government benefit checks were being taken from them by those who controlled the home.

Four women also were found in the home. One appeared to be a caretaker for the other three, who appeared to be mentally disabled.

They did not appear to have been held captive, police said.

Jones has a criminal record dating to 2001 in Harris County, including charges for failing to register as a sex offender. Court records state that as a teenager, Jones was convicted of two counts of aggravated sexual assault against a child in 1997 and sentenced to three years with the Texas Youth Commission.